Before You Start

This guide assumes you have administrator access to your accounting software (QuickBooks Online/Xero) and your chosen spend management platform. You’ll also need existing credit card feeds and a chart of accounts.

Overview

30 min
Setup Time
Intermediate
Difficulty
Weekly
Maintenance

What You’ll Learn

  • Streamlining multi-user corporate credit card expense tracking
  • Integrating spend management platforms (Ramp, Brex) with your accounting software
  • Automating receipt collection and transaction coding
  • Reconciling corporate card statements efficiently

1. Preparation Steps

Before configuring your systems, ensure your accounting software is ready:

Required Accounts

  • Corporate Credit Card Payable (Liability) for each card
  • Employee Reimbursements (Expense or Liability)
  • Various Expense Accounts (e.g., Travel, Software, Meals, Office Supplies)

Optional (but recommended)

  • Uncategorized Expenses (Expense) for temporary holding
  • Vendor Credits (Income) for returns or rebates
  • Employee Advance (Asset) for pre-paid expenses

2. Choosing Your Integration Strategy

You have two primary strategies, depending on your team’s size and complexity.

Strategy A: Manual Entry & Direct Bank Feeds

This approach relies on traditional bank connections to your accounting software.

Pros:
  • Free for basic bank feeds.
  • Suitable for very small teams with few transactions.
  • Direct connection to your bank.
Cons:
  • Time-consuming for multiple users.
  • Manual receipt matching and coding.
  • Difficult to enforce spending policies.

Strategy B: Spend Management Platforms (Ramp, Brex)

These are dedicated platforms designed for corporate card management and expense automation.

Expert Tip: We strongly recommend integrating with a dedicated spend management platform like Ramp or Brex. These platforms automate receipt collection, enforce policies, and provide clean data feeds directly to your accounting software, significantly reducing reconciliation time.

3. Step-by-Step: Leveraging Spend Management Software

Here is the high-level workflow for automating your expense management.

Here is a sample code block to show how an expense transaction might be formatted.

{
  "transaction_id": "TXN-001-ABC",
  "date": "2025-10-20",
  "vendor": "Stripe",
  "amount": 49.99,
  "employee_id": "EMP-007",
  "category": "Software Subscriptions"
}

4. Setting Up Your Spend Management Platform

  1. 1

    Connect Your Corporate Cards

    Link all corporate credit card accounts to your chosen platform (Ramp, Brex, Expensify, etc.). This pulls in transaction data.

  2. 2

    Integrate with Accounting Software

    Connect your spend management platform to QuickBooks Online or Xero. Ensure appropriate permissions are granted for data sync.

  3. 3

    Configure Expense Policies & Workflows

    Set up spending rules, approval flows, and auto-categorization based on your chart of accounts to automate coding.

Common Error: Wrong Account Mapping

Ensure that you map the correct liability accounts for each corporate credit card in your accounting software. Mismatched accounts are a common cause of reconciliation headaches.

5. Testing and Verification

Verification Checklist

  • Import a few recent transactions into your accounting software
  • Verify transactions are correctly categorized and coded
  • Check that receipts are attached automatically to transactions
  • Confirm that bank and platform balances reconcile

Need Help?

Simplify Your Reconciliation

Struggling with complex expense workflows? Our experts can help you set up and optimize your spend management for peace of mind.

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